(truth is) hotter than lava
by ScarletDeva
Summary: How did they ever end up here? That little boy with stars in his eyes, a fire in his soul, and his angel, his angel who was her own person with her own dreams, her own goals. If you think the answer is love, think again. When she breaks through, everything ends differently.


"Anakin has turned to the Dark Side," Obi-Wan said solemnly. His gaze held hers and, where once she found serenity, a sense of solid safety on which she could rely, all she could see was devastation.

_"Annie? My goodness, you've grown."_

**_LookatmePadmeseemee_**

_"So have you... grown more beautiful, I mean…" **lovemelovemePadme** "and much shorter... for a Senator, I mean."_

"No. Not Anakin," she replied. "He couldn't have." She turned, warding off his eyes far more than his words.

_"Please don't look at me like that."_

_"Why not?" **Iseeyouseemeloveme**_

_"Because I can see what you're thinking."_

_"Ahh…" **PadmePadmePadme** "So, you have Jedi powers too?"_

_"It makes me feel uncomfortable."_

There is no single life-defining moment. There is no such thing. But there are moments that will burn so fiercely into your memory that no march of time can ever soften the edges. These are moments that wake you from a sound sleep decades in the future, sweat streaking down your neck and a breath half-way between a scream and a sob caught in your throat like a caltrop.

Padme knew, as if she was suddenly Force sensitive and something otherworldly was bestowing that surety upon her, that this moment would be an echo inside her soul until her dying day.

_"It must be difficult having sworn your life to the Jedi... not being able to visit the places you like... or do the things you like…"_

_"Or be with the people I love." **PadmePadmeIloveyouloveme**_

"He killed younglings," Obi-Wan told her and rested a hand on her shoulder, the weight of it making her knees tremble, her womb roiling with the sudden agitation of her baby. "I saw the security hologram."

She didn't know if he said anything else, her ears rushing with sound, as if a waterfall broke over her head, and she gulped for breath. She tore her headdress from her head, the metal clinking on the stone floor, and dug her fingers into her skull. She barely felt Obi-Wan manuever her towards a cushion, the ever-present ache in her lower back subsiding as she sank down.

_"No, I shouldn't have done that."_

_"I'm sorry. When I'm around you, my mind is no longer my own." __**YouallyouPadmePadmePadme**_

She had taken several trips to Alderaan. On her first visit, between all of the political events, Bail and Breha took her on a private tour. One of the first stops was a visit to a small temple on the edge of the Organa family lands, where the forest met the mountains, white synthstone incorporated into the pale gray granite, a balcony on the tip of nowhere with Aldera in the distance. The winds were high, filling the loose fabric of her tunic and whipping her tightly-bound braid into her face. She could feel nothing but the wind, see nothing but the wind, hear nothing but the wind.

The roar in her ears took her back there, sweeping her clean, leaving behind nothing but the pressure of her child's movement in her womb and the beating of her own heart, the rapid rhythm that she could feel all the way to the tips of her fingers, fingers which were tightly gripping Obi-Wan's hands.

"Padme?" he inquired softly.

_"From the moment I met you, all those years ago, not a day has gone by when I haven't thought of you. And now that I'm with you again... "_

**_Lovemeburnformeloveme_**

_"I'm in agony. The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you... I can't breathe. I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating... hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me... what can I do? I will do anything you ask. If you are suffering as much as I am, please tell me."_

She nodded, the sudden clarity in her thoughts a sturdy overlay above a volatile mixture of emotions that she could not, did not have the right to prioritize. "He's killed before," she confessed evenly. She did not give herself the reprieve of closing her eyes even as the baby nudged against her diaphragm.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

_"I... I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them… Not just the men, but the women and the children too."_

**_LovemelovemeforgivemelovemePadmePadmePadme_**

_"They're like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals... I hate them!"_

Steadily, carefully, sipping at air, she explained. "I don't know how many there were, but when his mother died, when the Sand People murdered Shmi, he murdered them all. Men, women and children."

Obi-Wan's hands spasmed in hers.

_"I won't lose you, Padme." **PadmePadme**_

_"I'm not going to die in childbirth, Annie. I promise you."_

_"No, I promise you! I am becoming so powerful with my new knowledge of the Force, I will be able to keep you from dying." **Lovemeforgivemeacceptmebeherebewithme**_

"I didn't tell you because," she said and realized that she could not remember why, "I didn't tell you."

"I am sorry," he said and she did not know how he could apologize, shaking her head before he could say any more.

She leaned in, finding his eyes with her own, trying not to see the anguish in his face as she delivered what she knew would be a blow even to the solid oak that was Obi-Wan. "You must stop him. You must."

"I do not know if I can," he admitted, the cultured tones of his voice breaking between syllables.

"You can," she said. She knew this in her bones.

That certainty carried her through the flight to Mustafar, one hand on her lurching belly and one hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder, sorrow drawn in his bent back. As the star skiff approached landing, she took a deep breath, unnecessarily patted down her braided hair and rose.

"You should stay inside," Obi-Wan said.

"If I was going to listen to you," she disagreed, "I would have stayed on Coruscant." Briefly, she brushed the lightsaber hanging at his side.

He didn't argue further, checking the controls instead, an unnecessary precaution, the landing easy and smooth as nothing may ever be again.

The ramp extended, clicking into place, and Padme stepped into view at its very top. Anakin, hair disheveled, a black cloak billowing behind him, dashed towards her. Silently, she held up a hand, palm facing him, and tried to find her husband in the shadowed features of his face.

"Padme?" he asked, **_lovemelovemeloveme_** confusion lacing his voice, but she shook her head and stepped out of the way, ducking behind the side supports as quickly as her ungainly body would move, Obi-Wan taking her spot at the top of the ramp.

He looked at her and she nodded, catching her breath somewhere beneath her heart, the brown of Obi-Wan's cloak a familiar balm. "You can do this," she said to him, so quietly that she wasn't sure that he heard but the lines around his eyes softened and he strode forward.

"You turned her against me," Anakin bellowed, stalking a semi-circle around the older man. _**PadmelovemePadme**_

"You did that yourself," Obi-Wan replied evenly. "I am sorry, my brother." He dropped his cloak and drew his lightsaber, the electric sizzle accompanying the flare of blue light.

"You will not take her from me!" Anakin screamed, tossing his own cloak aside, his lightsaber coming to light in answer. PadmePadmeloveme

Padme leaned against a support, watching, the two men moving almost faster than she could follow, Anakin's erupting rage clashing with Obi-Wan's calm grief just as their weapons connected again and again, birthing tiny, molten stars in their wake. They pushed each other back and forth, Anakin pressing Obi-Wan, his features contorted with animal fury, the other man luring him away from the small ship and further and further out of Padme's view. She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes, immersing herself in the sound of their lightsabers, both wanting the battle over and wishing it would. just. go. on.

She could have walked out, could have followed. It wasn't cowardice keeping her on the ship. It was the baby under her heart and the determination that, in all the ways that she had failed her friendship with Obi-Wan, she would not serve as a distraction to him today.

She opened her eyes, straining them into orange-tinged darkness, her breath loud in her ears, glad she had made Threepio stay at the flight controls. She realized that she was counting lightsaber strikes, an absurdity that curved her mouth with something akin to a smile because she could afford that unlike all the other feelings simmering uneasily beneath her calm.

She could guess that they were moving, the sounds growing louder and fainter at intervals and then the entire command center shook and she clung to the beam. She could still hear the battle, knew that it wasn't over, and she waited.

Then there was silence and footsteps followed. She reached for her blaster, straightened, and stepped forward. She knew what had to happen, knew how it all should have ended, had every painful faith in Obi-Wan's steady hand, but... But.

A man came into view, unkempt ginger hair, a cream tunic singed at the edges, and two inert lightsabers in his hand.

"Are you sure?" she asked evenly, sheathing her weapon back into its holster.

He nodded, a slow, weighted gesture. "You were right. I had to stop him. He could not stop himself. It would have been a betrayal of the man that he used to be to leave his shell to walk the galaxy."

She swallowed, waited until he ascended and the ramp closed behind him, then flung herself into his arms, which closed around her, the lightsabers pressed uncomfortably into her back, and cried.


End file.
